Experimental infection of SPF piglets with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) viruses isolated from two farms.

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) viruses were isolated from pig samples obtained from two farms characterized by an increased number of stillbirth and high mortality in new-born piglets (farm A), and respiratory distress with high mortality in weaning and growing pigs (farm B) in 1993, respectively. When primary specific pathogen-free piglets, 5-day-old or 13-day-old, were experimentally inoculated with the isolates, they showed clinical signs of depress, anorexia, pyrexia, diarrhea, sitting posture and periocular edema. Rate of the weight gain was reduced in the inoculated piglets compared with the non-inoculated pig. There were no apparent differences in clinical signs between the piglets inoculated with the virus samples derived from farms A and B. Microscopically, the most prominent changes observed in experimentally inoculated piglets were interstitial pneumonia, nonpurulent myocarditis and catarrhal lymphnoditis post inoculation day (PID) 28. Viruses were recovered from tissues collected from the inoculated piglets on PID 7 or 28. Furthermore, the viruses were continuously recovered from the sera from PID 7 to PID 28. Antibodies measured by indirect immunofluorescence assay to PRRS virus were first detected in sera on PID 14, and the antibody titer rose to 1:1280 on PID 28.